


In Which Vlad is a Crime Lord (or Something) and Danny is Kind of Naive

by the_ghostwriter96



Series: Crime Lord Vlad [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Drugs, Gangs, M/M, Potential Underage, clueless Danny, he gets it from Jack, mafia, naive danny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23623246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ghostwriter96/pseuds/the_ghostwriter96
Summary: AU: Danny's parents run a restaurant, and Vlad is a crime lord/gang lord/mafia boss and dines there at night.Deleted the following chapters, consider this a oneshot.
Relationships: Danny Fenton/Vlad Masters
Series: Crime Lord Vlad [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701538
Comments: 20
Kudos: 255





	In Which Vlad is a Crime Lord (or Something) and Danny is Kind of Naive

It had started off so innocently. At least for Danny, it had. He’d just been _curious_. He’d only wanted to see what the big, sneaky deal was. He’d only wanted to know, that night when he had crept downstairs, why he wasn’t allowed down there at night. It was just a restaurant, just burgers and fries, what could the issue be? But he’d known, as soon as he’d reached the bottom step and peeked his head around the wall to see, that the people dining there weren’t the average customer.

First of all, they were all wearing suits. Sleek, black suits, with black ties, some of them had sunglasses, but most of them only wore the suit. They were drinking alcohol, secondly, something Danny didn’t even know his parents would allow. Glasses of different types, but the reddish-noses, the loud laughter that had drawn him from his room, and the bubbly, brown in most of the mugs told him enough. He’d seen drinks like that on TV. And finally, on the tables where they were playing some kind of card game, there were… guns. Pistols, of some sort, Danny didn’t know what kind, but he knew they were guns and he knew that adults didn’t carry around _fake_ guns like the one he had upstairs from when he was younger.

These were different people than the ones he and Jazz were allowed to serve during evenings, after homework and before bed. Now, Danny understood why he wasn’t allowed down here, but what he didn’t understand was why these people were allowed to be here to begin with! They weren’t cops. The air wasn’t right, for cops. Danny wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew.

Heart racing and ready to share with Jazz what he’d seen, Danny moved to pull back from the restaurant, to go back upstairs to their home, but someone from one of the tables caught his eyes and he froze. Oh no. But there was no anger, no “Go back upstairs!”, only a smile, soft, and friendly, and inviting with an arch of a brow that said, “Oh? I didn’t know you were here, too…” and Danny looked around the room for his parents.

They weren’t around. And weighing his pros and cons, he found more reasons to stay- though a big ‘con’ was that he was still in his space pajamas and that was kind of embarrassing- but he was so, so curious, too. Who were all these people? Why did they have guns? And why were they _here_ , of all places, playing their card games and making all their noise? Why not a bar or something? Why a little diner?

The man who caught his eyes has silver hair, but a young face for it. And bright, sharp, blue eyes that didn’t look away from Danny at all, even once, as the younger boy edged nervously into the room. Where were his parents? They’d be so angry if they saw him down here. He’d be grounded, for sure. But the man held up a hand, palm-up, and motioned him with his fingers. A quick chat, and then back to bed. That should be find. Just to have something exciting to tell Jazz, when he went back up there.

“Hello there, young man.” He was still looking at, still smiling at Danny, and when the teen reached his table, a hand rest on his mid-back, over his t-shirt with dark sleeves and a rocket-ship on the front. “What are you doing out of bed so late?” And then, before Danny could answer, the man added, “We weren’t too loud, were we?”

“I just wanted to see.” Danny answered him in a hushed voice, so that his parents wouldn’t hear him. “I could hear you laughing. I wanted to see… I wasn’t trying to sneak.”

“No, no, I get it.” The man’s tone was reassuring. “Why don’t you stick around? Have a seat.” And with that, Danny found himself manhandled into the seat next to the man, and then the whole chair was dragged over so close that the plastic arms of the chairs were touching. “And pay your mom and dad no mind. Once they know I’ve asked you to stay, it’ll be alright.”

“It won’t.” Danny insisted, and moved to stand but the man’s hand on his shoulder pressed him back into the chair. He could hear his father’s booming voice from the kitchen. “I’ll be in trouble,”

“You can trust me.”

The next moment was one of the most confusing moments of Danny’s young life. Both his parents came into the room, smiling, with more drinks. And then those drinks were on the floor, along with broken glass, and there was silence in the room. That was an extreme reaction to Danny being downstairs, in his opinion, but he’d known they’d be angry and he braced himself for that. For angry tones and threats and promises of losing his cellphone, his computer, his freedom, but instead, his mother’s voice was tight and oddly cheerful.

“Danny, darling, let’s get you back to-“

“I’d like for him to stay, actually.” The silver-haired man stated, cutting Maddie off, and the hand on his shoulder squeezed lightly. “Wouldn’t you like to stay, Danny? Is that short for Daniel?”

“Yeah,” Danny was answering the second question, but nobody seemed to take it that way.

“See? He wants to stay, I want him to stay, it’s a Friday night-“

“Get your hands off my-“ Again, though, the man cut Maddie off and Danny watched her carefully, growing more and more confused at the conversation went on.

“I’ll let that slide, because I understand.” He was speaking slowly, as though speaking to a toddler. “My nephew was Daniel’s age, is all. I enjoy the company. We’re just playing cards, Madeline, dear.” And suddenly, Danny wasn’t sure if he should be rooting for the man, and hope to stay, or if he should defend his mom, and go to bed. He wasn’t sure… which option was safer.

Before he had a chance to decide, Jack had come up, resting a hand on Maddie’s shoulder. “It’s okay, baby, Vlad’s a good guy- he’ll look out for our Danny.” Why, though, did Danny need to be ‘looked out for’? He’d figured they weren’t cops, but were they bad guys? Danny realized that in his apparently-immature mind, he’d been thinking of secret agents, stopping by after a mission for a burger and drinks, but he realized pretty quickly that wasn’t the case, and that this man had some sort of control over his parents.

Maddie was smiling at Danny, then, and while it wasn’t a genuine smile she didn’t look angry, or upset that he’d come downstairs. She looked scared. “Just let us know if you need us, okay, dear?”

“He’ll be fine, Madeline. You have my word.” And then the atmosphere was back to normal. No longer tense and scary, although Danny did notice Maddie didn’t leave the room for the rest of the night.

The man introduced himself as Vladimir, or ‘Vlad’, and he spent the rest of the night showing Danny how to play poker. Explaining the rules, and the goal, and letting Danny help him make decisions. He was nice, and cool and funny and fun and Danny _liked_ him and he wasn’t sure why his mom was so afraid, or why she wouldn’t take her eyes off him the entire night, or why he lips pressed so tightly together when Vlad would pet Danny on the head. He wasn’t sure why Vlad had more say than his parents in what happened, either. Why Vlad had more say than _Maddie_ , who had never let anyone boss her around for as far back as Danny could remember. She was always in charge, but apparently, not anymore.

And that’s how every following Friday night seemed to go, for a while. Danny would lie in bed, torn between going downstairs and staying upstairs, and eventually, he’d go down on his own and, at Vlad’s invitation, join the poker game. And slowly, Maddie seemed to become more at ease and would leave the room for brief periods of time. At first. That only lasted so long before this had become the new normal, and both his parents would be in the kitchen making food and pouring drinks and Danny would be playing cards with Vlad and his friends. His ‘men’, as he called them, even though there were women there too. “My men would like another round, on me, please.” Vlad would say, and his parents would disappear.

On one night, several weeks into this little arrangement, Danny was tired, and didn’t feel like going downstairs. He just wanted to sleep. There’d always be next week, after all. But a couple of hours after he’d made that decision, there was a knock on his door, and he stirred from sleep. Danny made his way over to the door, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah?” He asked, cracking it open. Light from outside poured into his dark bedroom, forcing his eyes to squint.

“You’re not coming down, dear?” Maddie asked, her voice tight. “It’s up to you, of course, but Vlad is asking for you.” And there was something about the way she was asking- something about the way she was speaking as a whole, that made Danny uneasy. Like the first night he’d come down, and the way she’d speak her pleasantries after Vlad had insisted Danny stay there. Fake, forced, like someone was-

Danny pushed open the door, and found a strange man standing to the side. Just out of sight, unless Danny poked his head out the door. Like he was hiding. He was tired before, but now his heart was pounding again. Just like on that first night. What was the safer option? What was he supposed to do?

The man, one Danny recognized as being there often but not someone he’d spoken to, smiled at him. “Boss wants you to play poker.” He explained. “Said to tell you you’re real good at it. He needs some help to win big.”

Danny looked at his mom, and her tight-lipped smile and the way her brows drew together ever-so-slightly. She was terrified. These people terrified her, although they’d all been nothing but nice to Danny. If she came up here to get him, it was probably because she wanted him to come down. Or because Vlad, who seemed to be able to tell everyone what to do, told her to come get him. What would happen if she went down without him?

“Okay. I’ll come down.”

“Get dressed.” The man said, no longer smiling as he turned and headed back down the stairs. Maddie lingered behind, and leaned over, hands on her knees to speak to Danny on his level.

“You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to go. Okay, Daniel? He won’t make you. We won’t let him make you go.”

“What? Go where- downstairs?”

“It’s- a surprise.” She faltered when the footsteps on the stairs paused. “He’ll tell you. But it’s up to you, okay?”

When Danny came downstairs dressed in a pair of jeans and NASA sweatshirt, he found things to be business as usual. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to adjust to the bright lights as he made his way groggily to Vlad’s table. He sat down in his usual chair, just beside Vlad’s, and glanced at Vlad’s hand of cards. He was careful to keep his face blank, just like Vlad had taught him to do, so that nobody else would know if it was a good or bad hand.

“Good evening, Daniel. I thought I wasn’t going to get to see you tonight.”

“I’m just sleepy.” Danny managed, through a yawn.

Fingers in his hair, lingering there for just a moment before returning to his cards. “Throw in some chips. A couple of these, Daniel.” Vlad instructed, and Danny obeyed, eyes finally getting used to the light. And the game went on, this time, with Danny’s help. Time ticked on, and Maddie’s words made less and less sense until finally, the game ended, and Vlad ordered everyone another round of drinks. Except for himself, this time. Instead, he turned to Danny, smiling gently, just as he had on that first night. “Tonight is New Years Eve.” He explained. “I’m sure you knew that.”

“Yeah,”

“And every year, there are fireworks at the mall. I know the perfect place to see them. I used to take my nephew there. Wouldn’t you like to see the fireworks?” Danny knew where this was going, then, and Maddie’s words made sense. She had been insistent that it was his choice, but…

The way the man paused on the stairs when she said it was up to Danny. Like he was making sure of something. Checking up on the situation. Was she supposed to tell him to go with Vlad? Or was it really up to him? They were so scared of Vlad for some, unknown reason, and Danny wasn’t sure how to read the situation. It hit him suddenly, though; they were afraid of Vlad because he was threatening them with something, right? It all made sense now! The way he’d said, on the first night, that he’d ‘let it slide’ when Maddie spoke up to him. Vlad had something on his parents, or at least on Maddie, and Danny suddenly wondered if he had as much choice as he thought in this matter.

What would’ve happened if he’d not come downstairs? What would Vlad have said or done to Maddie, then? Was the guy up there to make sure she wasn’t telling him to stay in bed?

“I’d like you to go with me.” Vlad added, when Danny didn’t answer right away. “We could stop and get ice cream, if you’d like.”

He was careful to keep his expression blank, like when they were playing poker, so that Vlad wouldn’t realize what Danny was starting to realize. He looked at his mom, who smiled at him from where she sat at the register, watching the scene go down. But she still looked worried. What was the right choice here? He was certain his mom didn’t _want_ him to go, but would it even be okay if he didn’t? Did he want to go? He wasn’t sure.

“Okay.” Danny agreed, because if his mom had to work that hard to make sure Vlad was happy, Danny probably needed to do that, too. Regardless of what she’d told him upstairs. “Let me get my phone.” And before anyone could stop him, he was on his feet and to the stairs, and then he was upstairs and at Jazz’s door knocking quietly before he had a chance to think about what he was doing.

The door swung open and at first, Jazz looked annoyed, but she must’ve seen something on his face that altered her thoughts and she looked just like Maddie, for a second. Worried, but pretending not to be. She was older. She never came downstairs. Maybe she knew, all along, what the big deal was. “Hey, Danny. What’s going on? Everything okay?”

“I’m going with Vlad to see the fireworks…” He drifted off, searching on her face for something to give away whether that was a bad idea. There was nothing there. Not even surprise. She’d known already, that he was going to ask. Maybe she’d heard Maddie in the hall before, or maybe everyone had known, and Danny was the only one in the dark.

The thought made him angry. People kept him in the dark about everything, these days. He only knew they were behind on bills because of the late notices that were hurriedly swept away when he was the one to get the mail. He only knew these people weren’t ‘good people’, because despite how nice they were to him, he noticed that his parents were afraid of them. And now, he didn’t know something else. Why Vlad wanted him to go. And if the only way to find things out was on his own… then he’d find out on his own.

“Nevermind. Later.” He turned away and stormed off to his room, ignoring her calling him back. He grabbed his phone, shoved it in his pocket and then made his way back down to Vlad, even as Jazz called out,

“Text or call any time, okay? I’ll be up waiting for you.”

Vlad’s car was just as sleek and black as his suit, although it was shinier, too. It was comfortable inside, and Vlad sat in the back with him, and someone else was driving. Why wasn’t Vlad driving? Wasn’t he the boss? Danny always thought the ‘boss’ would drive- Maddie always drove, except when Jazz was practicing. But Vlad sat by Danny in the backseat, anyway. “Wave to your parents, Daniel.” Vlad rolled down the window and waved a hand, a normal, friendly gesture, but Danny could see Maddie was seething and scared even behind her smile, and Jack… looked the same as always. Vaguely dazed, and kind of clueless, but always well-intentioned.

Even if there was danger, Danny wondered if Jack would realize it. He wondered if Maddie was tired of Jack not realizing how bad things were. He wondered if things were bad, now, even as he waved at them with a blank face, and he wondered if it was all his fault for coming downstairs all those weeks ago. If he had just listened…

“Daniel,” There was Vlad’s smile again. That soft one that seemed reserved for only Danny. “Would you like to stop for ice cream?” He asked, and Danny nodded automatically, but inside, he was on the verge of panicking so hard his emotions had gone completely numb. “Good. Chocolate, or vanilla? We’ll stop at _McDonald’s_.” He said to the driver.

Danny wasn’t even sure what he’d ordered until he had a chocolate ice cream cone in his hand. He ate it absently, watching out the car window as they left the drive-thru and headed out towards- well, the mall, Danny was assuming. Where else would they go? There were other, similar black cars heading in the same direction behind them, so Danny didn’t feel as weird as he would if it had just been him and Vlad.

But then again, Danny _liked_ Vlad. And that realization calmed him down immensely. Vlad was kind to him. Nice to him. He was cool, and funny, and confident and in charge and Danny found all of that incredibly alluring in the sense that it kept him coming down most Friday nights. He just wanted to learn more about Vlad. About what he did for a living, and who he was, and why Maddie of all people was _afraid_ of him. He found himself interested in learning about Vlad’s lifestyle, and if it weren’t for his mother’s fear causing him to hesitate, he would’ve been excited about the fireworks.

So he got excited about the fireworks. He wasn’t in danger. Vlad was nice to him. Vlad would, as Jack had put it, ‘look out for him’. He trusted as much. “Hey, Vlad,” Danny began, but a pang of hesitance, of worry made him pause. “Promise not to get mad?”

“I promise. You needn’t worry about me being angry with you for anything, Daniel.”

“What’s your job?” He asked, and when he looked at Vlad, he found the man frowning. For the first time, he looked unhappy with Danny. But he’d promised not to get mad. He’d promised. “I won’t… I don’t know.” Danny crossed his arms over his chest tightly, turning back to face the window. “It’s okay. Whatever you do. I know you guys are like…” He stopped himself short from calling Vlad and his men ‘bad guys’.

“We sell things. That’s all.”

“What kind of things where you need a gun to sell them?” He uncrossed his arms, letting his hands fall to his lap. Danny picked at a hangnail on his thumb. “Please tell me. I’m tired of everybody hiding things from me.”

“Drugs, Daniel. We sell drugs.” And for once, many of Danny’s questions were answered and he looked at Vlad, wide-eyed at the honesty. That was… a lot of honesty. That was more than Danny expected to hear. He’d been waiting for a _”It doesn’t matter._ or a _”Mind your manners, Daniel.”_ , but instead, someone had _actually_ listened to him, and told him what he wanted to know. That outweighed how scary and new it was to be around someone that did something so illegal. So bad.

“Oh. Okay.” He replied after a moment. “Thanks for telling me.” That made sense. These were ‘bad guys’. Dangerous people who did dangerous things. No wonder his mom and Jazz were worried for him. But they were just going to see fireworks, right? So it wasn’t a big deal or anything. Nothing to be scared about.

Danny watched out the window as they pulled into a parking garage. The car stopped at the toll booth, and once the driver paid, he got out of the car, and so did Vlad. Danny watched, confused, as Vlad got into the driver’s seat and the toll booth let them inside. He watched the cars go by under dim lighting as they drove up the ramp, and then up another, and then another until they were ten stories up and Vlad parked the car in an empty space.

There were lots of empty spaces. Maybe two other cars took up the platform, and the cars seemed to be empty. The fireworks had already started, high-pitched shrieks followed by loud _pops_ and then dozens of smaller _crackles_. Danny followed Vlad’s lead when the man left the car, and went around to lean against the hood. Danny crawled up onto it, sitting beside Vlad with his feet on the bumper, and looked up to the sky with his ever-melting ice cream cone in his hand. He liked a drop that had melted down and settled on his knuckles. “Hey, Vlad,” Danny asked, and when he looked over, Vlad was already looking at him, rather than at the fireworks. He could feel a blush rising to his cheeks, but he wasn’t sure why.

“Yes, Daniel?”

“What happened to your nephew?”

“I never had a nephew.” He said, and chuckled. “I might. Never had one that I’ve met.”

“You told my parents-“

“What they wanted to hear. No need in telling them the truth. They’d only worry about you more.”

Right. That made sense. Danny turned back to the sky, and took a bite of his ice cream before it dripped on him again. Eventually, the ice cream was gone and the half-cone that was left was on the ground, discarded. And, eventually, Vlad had moved close enough to Danny that they were side-by-side, though Vlad wasn’t sitting on the car. Danny picked at his hangnail, watching the extravagant colors that filled up the sky, but his mind was on Vlad and how close the man was. The drug-selling, gun-carrying, Maddie-scaring man that Danny wasn’t afraid of at all even though he _knew_ , on some level, that he should be. If Maddie was scared of him, everyone should be scared of him.

“It’s nearly midnight.” Vlad said, checking his watch. “Do you know what people do at midnight, on New Years?”

“What?”

“They kiss.”

Oh. And suddenly, the night took a different kind of turn that made Danny’s stomach feel funny and fluttery, and he was kind of clueless maybe but he wasn’t _stupid_ , he knew what Vlad was getting at and he knew that it made him feel weird in a good way. And maybe that’s what his parents were worried about the whole time. Maybe they knew, or suspected that Vlad was going to do something like that. But Danny wasn’t worried. He was pretty sure he was safe, with Vlad, and that if he said no, Vlad wouldn’t do it anyway. He was pretty sure he liked the idea, but… “I don’t know.” He replied to the unspoken question. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“Oh?” Vlad’s surprise sounded genuine, but the hand on Danny’s lower back was confident anyway. “Well, it either will help or won’t to hear as much, but I can guide you in that.”

A guide in kissing? That would be kind of embarrassing. But Danny was excited, now, at the thought- imagine telling his friends that he’d kissed at midnight on New Years. He couldn’t tell them who, but maybe he _would_ tell them it was a guy. Sam probably knew, anyway, that if he kissed someone it wouldn’t be a girl. Tucker would be so jealous that he’d kissed somebody first. And without even trying- Vlad wanted to kiss _Danny_ , Danny didn’t have to do anything, unlike when they used to try to get dates in middleschool.

“How long till midnight?” How long till he had to decide? There were some cons to this, too, like for one, Vlad was a grown man and Danny was- not quite that, yet. There was the fact that Vlad was a scary guy, too, and Danny _liked_ him, but did Vlad like Danny?

“Three minutes, nearly to the second.”

“People only kiss if they like each other.” Danny tried, and Vlad’s hand on Danny’s back began to draw circled on him. Slow, firm circles. “And if it’s my first kiss I want it to be with someone that likes me.”

“You think that I don’t like you?”

“I don’t know what I think.”

“I do like you.” And now Vlad was in front of him, looming over him even with Danny on the front of the car. Tall, and imposing, but comfortably so. And in all of Danny’s fantasies, that he’d never told anyone or talked about out loud- only on _reddit_ forums under a username of random numbers, so nobody could trace it back to him- he had always pictured his first kiss with someone taller. Taller, and stronger, who would have big hands that would feel warm and rough against his skin just like Vlad’s did now, where his palm touched Danny’s cheek.

“How do I know?” It could be a lie. All of it could be a trick. Vlad was a bad guy, who sells drugs and carries guns and pretends he used to have a nephew like Danny so he could try to kiss him instead.

“You can trust me.”

Danny wanted things to be perfect. If they were going to kiss, he wanted things a certain way. And in a sweatshirt and jeans, he didn’t want Vlad to look so _proper_. “Can you take your hair down?”

And Vlad smiled, that gentle smile, and did as he was told. Danny reached up both hands, hesitated, and when Vlad didn’t stop him, he ran his fingers through the man’s silver hair to straighten it out on both sides. It was soft, not scratchy like he thought it’d be with how shiny it was. Soft to touch, like Vlad took care of it with fancy shampoo and conditioner, like Jazz. He touched Vlad’s beard, next; coarse, and scratchy, like he’d expected his head-hair to be, too. He wondered if the rest of Vlad’s hair was soft, or scratchy, or if it was shaved like the guys on the swim-team at school.

Fireworks picked up, suddenly, screaming their way into the sky and popping faster, and together, a grand finale as midnight came around. Marking the start of the new year. Danny had always heard that whatever you’re doing at midnight on New Years, is what you’ll be doing for the rest of the year. And so when Vlad leaned in, both hands flat on the hood of the car on either side of Danny, Danny closed his eyes and let it happen.

They kissed, softly, and gently, just like Vlad’s smiles and just like Danny expected it to be. He didn’t know what to do with himself. With his hands, his lips, but he breathed in Vlad’s sent and it smelled metallic in a way- but also like burning. Like something smoked, and metal-ish, that he couldn’t quite put his finger on but was unique to Vlad. Nothing he’d ever smelled before, except maybe vaguely, when he was little, at a shooting range with Jack before Maddie had put her foot down on “No guns!”

It turned out, Danny didn’t have to do much at all, because Vlad pulled away as the shrill fireworks stopped. Danny blinked, emotions flooding his senses now that he had a moment to think. Fear, because he knew on some level what had just happened was wrong. Nerves, because now what did he do, now that they’d kissed? Would things be the same? Did it change anything? Would he still be wanted down on Fridays? A weird, pure kind of joy, because he’d just had a _really_ nice first kiss. And finally, _smug_ , because nobody else in the world knew what had just happened. Because nobody, not a single person who had lied to him, hidden things from him and treated him like a baby, had to know what had just gone down unless he wanted them to know specifically.

That last thing was a good feeling.

“Thank you, Daniel.”

“For what?” Danny sounded more breathless than he’d expected. They’d only kissed for a few seconds!

“For allowing me to be your first kiss. I’ll treasure it.”

And then, back in the car, they headed down the ramps they’d come up because Danny’s “parents will worry” if they didn’t get back soon. Vlad seemed perfectly content as he got into the backseat, next to Danny, and the driver climbed back into the front, but Danny was bursting with questions he knew he probably wasn’t supposed to ask in front of someone else. But he needed to know, so badly what was going to happen next. He had a taste of the truth from Vlad, and now he wanted to demand more. More truths, more answers, more things that he wasn’t allowed to know until now, until Vlad was nice enough to stop hiding things from him.

“Hey, Vlad,” Danny whispered, and Vlad looked at him for a second before turning to the door. With a press of a button, a tinted window rolled up between the seats in the front and the back, dividing them and closing out the driver so that they were, technically, alone back there.

“For the record, Daniel, you needn’t worry about what you say in front of my men.”

Good to know. But still. “Do you…” He didn’t look up from his thumb, where he was picking at the hangnail that now throbbed from his fidgeting with it. “Am I still-“ He didn’t know how to ask without sounding like an insecure little kid. “I just want to know if things are different now.”

“Do you mean on Fridays? I’d still love for you to join me for games. Unless you’d prefer otherwise, of course.” So he _did_ have a choice. It _was_ okay to choose.

“But I can’t tell my parents about- stuff.”

“You could, if you’d like. It doesn’t really matter, beyond that they might not let you see me again, after that.”

Danny felt something jolt in his chest- something like hurt, or fear. “And that doesn’t matter?”

Vlad seemed to realize something, then. He reached over, unclipping Danny’s seatbelt and motioned for him to scoot closer. Danny didn’t move, though. What Vlad had implied hurt his feelings, and confused him. The man had said he liked Danny, but if it didn’t matter if Danny told- if it didn’t matter whether Danny could see him or not, could it be that Vlad had gotten what he wanted and that’s all that mattered to begin with? Was it all a lie, leading up to this? But a kiss- a kiss didn’t seem worth that many lies.

“It matters.” Vlad’s tone was kind and reassuring. “But I won’t ask you to lie for me. I just wanted to you to be aware of the outcome, should you decide to tell them.” He pressed a palm to Danny’s cheek, turning his face until they met each other’s eyes. “I only meant that I wouldn’t get in trouble. I wouldn’t go to jail, they won’t lock me away, that isn’t how it works. Not for me. That’s all.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a powerful person, Daniel, with a lot of money. Nobody will touch me. Not ever. But if you decide that you’ve had enough of me- I won’t demand otherwise. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” He did understand. And honestly, he didn’t understand how even cops could be afraid of Vlad. Not when he’s this nice. “And if I haven’t?”

“…Haven’t what?”

“Had enough of you.” Danny explained. “What then?”

The restaurant and Danny’s house came into view in the distance.

“Whatever you’d like. I’m having a party tomorrow night, to celebrate the members of my team. I’m sure I could come up with a reason to take you out for a few hours.”

Danny looked out the window, where Maddie and Jazz were sitting on the front patio, Maddie slouching over a table. Then, he looked at Vlad, and nodded his head. “Yeah, okay. I want to go with you. But-“

“But?”

“You won’t… hurt them, right? Not ever?” He asked his mind going back to that moment when Vlad had threatened Maddie. It was all talk, right? From someone so nice, it had to be. “Even if they say I can’t go?”

“They won’t tell me no.” Vlad chuckled, certain. “No one has that right, except for you, Daniel.”

“But you won’t hurt them. Even if.”

“Even if.” Vlad agreed, suddenly solemn, and Danny relaxed a little.

“Okay.” And then, as the car stopped at the front of the driveway, Vlad reached over Danny and pushed open his door.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow evening. Goodnight, Daniel.”

“Goodnight,” Danny said, and slipped out of the car. As it pulled away, Maddie had all but jumped out of her seat to run to him.

“Danny, sweetheart, are you alright? Is everything-“

“I’m fine.” He smiled, to reassure her. “The fireworks were really cool and we got ice cream. He told me about his nephew. He liked space, too.” Danny lied through his teeth, and Maddie looked like she could collapse with relief. Lying wasn’t so hard, after all. Maybe that’s why everyone did it so much.

Danny’s dreams that night were filled with kisses and other things, but mainly, they were filled with Vlad and his silver hair and his suit.


End file.
